Sorry there’s little to no fanfare about this, I’ve been buried in getting the actual works ready.Tonight I’m finishing some framing work, and tomorrow my first solo show We Search For Another is being hung at Urban Element.

The initial body will be eleven pieces, including Naught But An Odd Tree, Cockatiel Attacks!, A Longing to Belong, Boy Meets Girl, Girl Is Bitch and Girl Meets Boy, Boy Is Dick, A Road Alone, The Infinite Wall Of Failed Communication, Sometimes It’s Over, Vanity Affair, A Connection, and To Have Or To Hold Back. There’re a few more works in the collection, including a new diptych and the second largest piece I’ll have ever done that’ll materialize at the reception, the date of which is yet unknown.

At any rate, these works will be up for about a month, and they’re all for sale, so make sure you swing by Urban Element and check’em out. Drop me a line and I’ll meet you there and we can discuss the works over drinks. I’ll keep you posted on the reception, as I’m sure everyone wants to see my mysterious new big painting.

Well well well, that’s four paintings up in the past four weeks, if I’m not mistaken. It’s almost like I’m ceasing to be a hopeless failure and more like a Good Productive Artist. Rock on!

Sure, it was a commission, and it’s got a private audience of two, but I was so delighted with the bizarre comedy of Brain SAMMICH! that I felt it would be a shame not to shoot it for record’s sake. So, while only Ms. Stephanie Hammer and her guests will be viewing exactly how awesome this painting is in the flesh, you all can rub your peepers over its pixels here on the site.

The other painting is one of the fastest I’ve done in many years, because I wanted to retain that energetic sketchiness the underpainting started. It’s also my first self-portrait in like, two years, and the only true one I’ve done in paint (though this painting arguably counts).

Vanity Affair

And, because I really think self-portraits are among the more egotistical things I can think of, I couldn’t help taking a satirical jab at them in it. Mind you, it creeps me the heck out (not to mention my coworkers and girlfriend. My friend Liz is disturbingly amused by it…) At any rate, however disturbing it is, it’s very brilliantly colored and explores a lot of new line work I’ve been getting into lately, so it may be just watershed or it might be kicking off some new stylistic explorations. We’ll have to see.

Oh, and while not technically a new painting now, the previous shot of Lipstick 66 has persistently felt a bit flat to me, so while I had the lights out I went ahead and reshot it to more accurately show it’s glory. Find that here.

Well, I think that’s a wrap for Vanity Affair, I don’t want it to start getting that over-worked feeling, I want it to retain its youthful sketchiness and bright, bold colors.

Also, since I used a lot of OMS and Galkyd on this one, and not my usual stand oil, it’s pretty dry already, so tomorrow I’m going to try and get it and Steph’s painting (properly titled Brain SAMMICH!) shot and up in paintings.

So, a long time ago in a lifetime far, far away I made this painting, my only concession to the so-called “pop” art style, although it’s roots lie more in my development as a designer and the use of societal shorthand than in any actual interest in pop art (take that, critics!). And, it was always supposed to have a counterpart, another complimentary piece that made it a whole.

Problem was, I never got around to doing it. Talked about it a lot over the ages (almost anyone who’s expressed interest in it in person as basically heard my description of the painting that should exist with it). But, never settled down to do it.

Lucky for everyone, I’m feeling inspired right now. I got its primed canvas hanging on my “to-do” wall (this painting more leans against the “to-do” wall), and now there’s a sketch. ooh. aah.

So, one of the purposes of the Status blog here, if you hadn’t guessed it by now, is to show to everyone out there who’s never seen it unfold for themselves how a painting builds over time. I’m fond of complaining that for probably the first half to two-thirds of any painting it’s a frustrating mess, but once I work with the paint long enough eventually it’ll all snap together and I’ll step back and be amazed that there’s a painting in front of me where once just an ugly mess of brushstrokes sat.

That’s just my take, though, not trying to imply it’s like that for all artists ’cause I’m really sure it isn’t. But, it is for me, and we follow it here.

Vanity Affair, Day Two. Things are starting to get colorful. Still in love with that initial cerulean wash.